Power of a Blade
by GamerGirl123
Summary: Zoë knew she wasn't special. She wasn't smart nor pretty nor pleasant. Why the Outsider had chosen her, was always a mystery. Not that she was going to question him. Through an unfortunate turn of events, Zoë finds herself in the assassin's group called, the 'Whalers'. With Daud as her mentor, Zoë begins to master her newfound powers. But the consequences will be great...


Prologue:

Origins

* * *

Zoë wasn't special. Not in the slightest. Nothing about her was interesting. With thin blond hair that fell just past her shoulders and grey eyes that she inherited from her father, she wasn't pretty like many other girls her age. She was ordinary. Boring, even.

She knew only the raw basics of education; reading, writing and small amounts of mathematics and she could only hold her own in high society for a few minutes before her whole superior, upright demeanour would shatter like glass.

But Zoë didn't care about the fact that she wasn't pretty or smart. She didn't care that her brother would die of the plague in only a matter of weeks. She didn't care about anything these days. Only the thought of survival kept her going. Only the thought of getting through one day at a time kept her moving.

But why the Outsider chose _her _was a mystery on itself.

She had been sleeping in an abandoned building when it happened, high up on the top floor where she was sure the rats wouldn't get to her. So far none of them had and she was grateful, since she couldn't spend another sleepless night worrying over bites that may cause the plague.

The city had gone to hell in only a matter of weeks when the plague hit. While the pompous Lords and Ladies hid away in their luxurious mansions, being waited on hand and foot, the rest of the city was fighting off the siege of endless amounts of rats and disease.

Zoë's mother was the first to go. It hadn't surprised her or her family, as her mother had a weak immune system and no will to fight against the plague. She was gone after three days. Her father and younger sister took a little longer to die, just long enough for her brother, Callum, to catch the retched curse of a disease as well. The night they died and Callum was infected, Zoë decided to leave. It was an easy decision, requiring hardly any thought. The truth was, Zoë was tired. Tired of taking care of people she knew were going to die and tired sitting in her home, waiting for the plague to snatch her away as well. She wanted to be free of it. She wanted out.

And so, after months of pickpocketing, stealing and murdering in the streets, Zoë found herself there, on that top floor of the abandoned building, surrounded by sheet covered furniture and the smell of decay, all while feeling completely and utterly alone. _I deserve it, s_he thought in her sleep. _I deserve it for running like that. _Suddenly sick of feeling sorry for herself, Zoë forced herself to sleep, a talent she had been able to master in the weeks before her father and sister had died.

At first, there was just white light. White light and the sound of nothing. It might have seemed like a nightmare to others but to Zoë, it was peaceful. Quiet. In a horrible, creepy sort of way. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the white light was replaced with a wide open space, with chunks of the city spread out amongst the light blue nothingness, just floating in the air.

It was confusing at first, and mesmerising as well, but something about that place reeked of higher power and fear, making Zoë anxious to move. But with hardly any other options, she began to run.

Jumping from piece to piece, Zoë could see that the chunks of the city were not just random. They were all a specific scene, frozen in time, scenes that all somehow related to her.

She saw her mother, frail and dying in her bed, her father by her dying mother's side. She saw herself, holding her little sister as the younger girl cried for their mother. She saw her brother, in what she guessed was the present, huddled in the corner of her old home, looking pale and ill, with eyes sunken into their sockets and his mouth drooping into an ugly frown.

_Who was showing me this?, _she thought, hauling herself up onto what seemed to be the last piece of the city. _More like, _what _is showing me this? _

On the final floating chunk of Dunwall, Zoë couldn't help but shiver as the feeling of power sliced into her with the precision and bite of broken glass shards. Something most definitely wasn't right here. And Zoë knew she had been naïve to think that she would wake up at the end of the road.

"Well, well, well. The lost lamb comes to slaughter. It seems you found your way here just fine...Zoë"

That voice...it was too pleasant to be that of a god but too cold to be that of a man.

Slowly, Zoë turned herself around, struggling hard to control her rapidly increasing rate of breathing. And there he was, if she could even call it a 'he'. The Outsider. A god. Something not of this world. Something that could not feel love or hate or jealousy. Only mere interest. And it was staring at her with it's cold eyes in the way that a parent looks down at a child; superior, distant and obviously in charge.

"What?" It said, leaning forward slightly as if to look down on her. "Surprised to see me? I can assure you, many have seen me and never been surprised. But only a few have escape from madness."

Feeling unbelievably stupid, Zoë swallowed down her fear and stared up at the Outsider with a look of annoyance and disdain.

"Madness is easily achieved by lack of common sense," She snapped, crossing her arms across her chest in the same manner as the higher being. "It is not escaped, it is avoided. And I think I've avoided it very well."

The Outsider chuckled darkly, the sound sending sharp shivers down Zoë's spine. What _did _it want? Surely it could have wasted it's time on someone more interesting, someone who actually _had _a filter between her thoughts and her tongue, unlike Zoë, spoke her mind without even a second thought. But she was having second thoughts about this and she knew, if she spoke out again, it would only get her killed or worse. _If there even was a worse alternative to death. _

"So quick to judge, are you?" It said knowingly. "I wonder how many times that quick tongue of yours has gotten you into more trouble than you could handle?"

Zoë took that as a definite sign to shut up but the Outsider looked at her with stern expectation, like a teacher demanding an answer from a student.

"Too many to count," She muttered, lowering her gaze to the ground below the Outsider. She had only just noticed he was floating a few inches off the ground. _Show off, _she thought.

"It seems you have gotten lost along your way, have you not? Hurting those you love and leaving them behind as well?"

She was sure the Outsider meant to attack her emotionally on that front but Zoë was beyond caring about her family at this point. They had been an obstacle, a road block, something in the way of her survival. She didn't need them anymore, so she let them go. Simple. Easy. Without doubt.

"Are you going somewhere with this or are you just going to float there, taunting me all day?" Zoë was losing patience and snapping back at the entity was probably going to be the only way to get it to leave her be. _Never mind the consequences_, she thought. Zoë was getting restless and the dream was getting nowhere. That was, until she felt the burning sensation on her right hand.

It didn't hurt so much but it was the shock of the pain that made her gasp. The sensation lasted a little over a second before it was gone, just as suddenly as it appeared.

Looking down at her hand, Zoë found that there was now a strange but slightly familiar symbol burnt onto the back of her hand. Zoë tried hard to remember where she had seen it but the memory was shoved far back to the edges of her mind, slipping through her fingers like water every time she thought she had a grasp on it. It was frustrating and bothersome but there was nothing she could do about it. Memories were fragile things and were always there to cause you pain but were never there when you needed them the most.

"I am the Outsider and this is my Mark. There are forces in this world and beyond. Allowing you this Mark will give you access to such forces. What you do with this newfound power is up to you and you alone."

Zoë stares at the Outsider, confusion and a strange sense of power swirling in her mind. Why her? She was nothing special. She was not interesting. She was just her and that was that. Nothing more. But she wouldn't question the Outsider. Whatever it intended for her, it was keeping it a secret. Besides, Zoë didn't want to know why she would need such power. She would rather learn on the fly and deal with situations as they came.

"In the lonely and hidden places of your world, you will find shrines dedicated to me. Find them and you will find Runes that will expand your access to the forces of the world beyond yours," The Outsider continued. It seemed like advice to Zoë but by the sound of it's voice, the Outsider only meant to tell her because it was information given by default and was nothing that the others who had been Marked didn't know.

Before the dream had ended, the Outsider made the effort to tell her one last thing.

"You have taken a strange turn in your life, Zoë and you have twisted your very own nature whilst doing it," It said, staring down at her with still cold eyes, the eyes of a god.

"You interest me," It continued. "And I would like to see what becomes of you."

And with that, the dream had ended and Zoë woke, gasping for air as if she had just been pulled out of water. Lifting her right hand up, Zoë found that the dream had not exactly been a dream, as the Outsider's mark was still there, burnt onto her skin by some kind of other-worldly fire.

Unable to go back to sleep, Zoë pushed herself to her feet, surprised to find that she felt hardly any fatigue or weakness. It was a strange but thrilling feeling and Zoë revelled in it. _This _made her different. _This _was her ticket out. _This _was what was going to get her out of this goddamned city alive.

Then, just as quickly as the memory had slipped from her mind, it came back again. The Outsider's Mark. She knew where she had seen it before.

When she was younger, she remembered Callum coming home one day with a token of sorts, a strange round thing that appeared to be made out of bone. There had been a symbol carved onto it surface, a symbol that, at the time, had been foreign to her. But it wasn't foreign to her anymore. She knew exactly what it was.

Knowing exactly where she needed to go and what she needed to do for the first time in weeks, Zoë smiled a manic sort of smile, the kind you would only find on a psychopath intent on the kill.

Even as she set out to find more power and edge herself closer to freedom, Zoë didn't realise how deep she would plunge into trouble. She didn't realise how horribly complicated her situation would become in the weeks ahead.

No. She didn't realise any of that. All she wanted was more power than those around her. More power to play god.

But she would soon know what_ real _power is...

* * *

**So this is something I've been wanting to write for a little while. I'll try to get the chapters up reasonably quickly but I'm trying to improve my writing, so proof-reading might take a while. Review and tell me what you think. **

**And The Fox Familiar, that is not an excuse for you to be an asshole. Yes it's a public site with public comments but if you don't like what you're reading then, don't read it like a normal human being. And now she's going ****hurl abusive language at me from afar, in 3...2...1...**


End file.
